Landing in Guatemala City airport late at night was like the opening scene from Love Actually. Albeit slightly more chaotic. A cloud of balloons - mostly red love hearts and some indistinguishable animals - bounced frantically above the heads of welcoming families by arrivals; just outside, back-packing travellers were ushered into waiting shuttles and vanished into the darkness.
My partner and I were there for a two-week trip to explore Guatemala: the less frequently visited country in Central America. Dwarfed doubtlessly by its neighbour – Mexico - but often rhapsodised by those who remembered lava-spitting volcanoes and lakes with such endless horizons they felt like oceans.
Antigua
First, we began our trip in the Spanish colonial town of Antigua, not only as a base to hike the nearby volcano Acatenango but as a colourful city to explore (it’s small enough that you can walk from one end to the other in around 15 minutes). You know you’ve arrived when your car begins to bounce along the haphazardly-cobbled streets as if you’re on horseback. We spent our first night at the hostel Maya Papaya (from £36 per night, mayapapayaantigua.com). The rooms were bright and comfortable; the breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and classic Guatemalan black beans delicious.
The best thing about arriving at night is that from the second you wake up, you’re struck by the otherworldly landscape; Antigua is built low enough that the only outliers are the volcanoes that surround it (the last big eruption from Fuego was in 2018). Jetlagged and dazed, we stumbled out just as the city was stirring. Nearby market stalls by the Iglesia de la Merced (an intricate yellow church) were setting up for the day, and owners wearing a hundred hats stacked atop their heads like giraffes’ necks would slowly and carefully nod at you anticipating a sale. By late morning we needed another caffeine boost from one of Antigua’s best coffee shops: 12 Onzas’s courtyard is filled with tiny tables and hanging Clock Vine flowers (the coffee considerably better, and half the price of anything you’d precure from East London). Later, we stopped by Xibala Studios, a concept store filled with artisan products made before your eyes by jewellers and weavers and for lunch we tried Samsara, for big bowls of fresh vegetables and spices.
Later we checked into our next accommodation Posada Del Angel (from £149 per night, posadadelangel.com) - located on the south of the city (former US president Bill Clinton is a fan). Behind a plain wall, with just a miniscule plaque featuring its name, its doorway opened into a plant-filled courtyard and open-air sitting room with an Yves Klein deep blue pool stretching along the left-hand side. We swam and slept and sat watching the sunset on the terrace sofas, smudges of peach and muddied yellow fading into the blue silhouettes of the towering Volcan de Agua. Post-dinner we went for a nightcap at candlelit speakeasy Café No Se, sipping on smoky grapefruit paloma cocktails with a chilli kick whilst enjoying live Spanish music from a mother-daughter duo.
Breakfast is the only meal served at Posada Del Angel and we were left speechless at how good it was. First, a huge pot of local coffee alongside huge fruit sculptures: a pyramid of watermelon, alongside icebergs of papaya and pineapple, followed by Huevos rancheros and freshly-squeezed orange juice. We then lunched at the sprawling Villa Bokeh (from £239 per night, villabokeh.com booked via relaischateaux.com), an elegant boutique hotel surrounded by lush green grounds, dining on fresh, tart ceviche.
Acatenango
Bright and early the next morning we headed to climb Acatenango. There are countless tour companies who all offer very similar-sounding packages for the overnight hike, though we opted for a company called Soy Tours: which includes experienced guides, all meals and hiking equipment included (we had tents set up for us inside a cabin to protect from the wind).
A caveat: we’d heard the climb was hard, but I was shocked by how tough it was. You climb constantly and steeply uphill on loose dirt for about seven hours until you hit base camp where you spend the night. We had breaks every half an hour or so, and one for lunch. The second I thought I might have recovered somewhat, a guide would yell “VAMOS! Keep moving!” This aside, the scenery was breath-taking, passing through four ecosystems, including a cloud forest and a volcanic pathway with steep black soil on either side. When we arrived at base camp, we saw the tip of Fuego smoking away ahead of us. We watched sunset from inside the cloud layer – bursts of pink and orange shifting behind tall black trees. After supper, we drank hot chocolate our guides made from thick slabs of Guatemalan chocolate.
After a rough, three-hour sleep, we woke at 4am to start the final precarious hike. Reaching the summit was spellbounding – Volcan Fuego casting a shadow into the clouds that looked like its own double, and the giddy feeling of having climbed above the clouds. Exhausted, we had a well-deserved lunch at Nana: part vintage store, part upmarket small plates restaurant (they couldn’t have been friendlier to two guests caked in two days of volcanic dirt), sampling fresh tomato ceviche and raw mahi mahi fish and pea hummus.
El Paredon
Trading the cooler air of Antigua – a city that sits 1500 metres above sea level – for the Pacific Coast was a shock to the system. El Paredon was 37 degrees when we arrived and 90% humidity.
We stayed at Zoah (from £57 per night, zoahsurf.com), with rooms roofed by palm/banana leaves and a pool in the middle. If you’re visiting in the rainy season (May-October) I’d strongly advise staying somewhere with a pool (the heat is oppressive and the sea at this point too dangerous to swim). El Paredon is a strange place, it feels half finished – breezeblock structures that could be luxury resorts have been left abandoned next to flourishing hotels drenched in pink bougainvillaea.
But if you want a place to relax and live in the slow lane, it’s ideal. For drinks, we went to Cocori lodge, one of the few bars directly on the beach. Even off season it still had a buzz. For dinner we went two nights in a row to Chef in Flip Flops, a restaurant in an outside courtyard with a weekly-changing menu and cheap cocktails (£3.50 for an exceptional Aperol spritz). My boyfriend tried a Guatemalan favourite, a Michelada – essentially beer mixed with Bloody Mary – and was less enamoured. For breakfast our favourite spot was, by far, Café Del Mar, with papaya smoothies bigger than your head for £2. Sure, walking the black volcanic sands during the day is like walking on hot coals, but as the sun sets and a string of pelicans flies overhead it feels like you’re in another world entirely.
Flores
Then it was time to head to the north of the country, near to the Belize border - to Lake Peten, the second largest lake in Guatemala. We flew there from Guatemala city, which takes around 45 minutes. Alternatively, you can take a shuttle for nine hours, stop at the nature reserve Semuc Champey, then clamber on for another six hour shuttle up straight up to Flores.
We stayed at La Lancha (from £160 per night, thefamilycoppolahideaways.com), one of three hotels owned by Francis Ford Coppola, an oasis overlooking the glass water of the lake and the stillest water I’ve ever seen at such scale. With each room or suite tucked away into the rainforest or overlooking the lake, it never felt crowded, though it has a homely feel. The hotel is laid out with different vantage points - the restaurant is the highest - set amongst red tropical flowers and palm trees with hummingbirds darting in and out of the ceiling. Serving fresh fish cooked on open fires, corn and black bean soups with herbs, tortilla chips and tomato salsa, and A-grade guacamole. Rainforest casitas and suites are styled with wonderfully minimal interiors, hammocks and deck chairs. But best of all is the lake itself, reached by a funicular carriage. As you descend almost vertically in the small carriage, the sounds of the birds and insects is immersive. A small wooden jetty then leads to a pagoda from which you can swim, rope jump, paddleboard and canoe.
The next morning we visited the Mayan ruins Tikal. We covered maybe seven or eight gargantuan temples, intricate stone towering high into the sky, over the course of the morning. Stopping to marvel at the wildlife: monkeys swinging through trees, exotic birds, Coatis with their long pointy tails, and even a lake with a sign warning of crocodiles.
Lake Atitlan
And so, to our final stop: Lake Atitlan. On our first night, we stayed at Casa Palopo (from £271 per night, casapalopo.com booked via relaischateaux.com), perched high above the lake, painted in searing blues and yellows. Our room was vast and comfortable, with its own large terrace to read and relax in the morning. Our dinner in the restaurant offered multiple hibiscus and watermelon juices that stained tongues a deep purple; tuna tartare with crisp fresh apple; sea bass with corn puree and basil oil; and a chocolate tart. The next morning, the hotel arranged us a tour of the nearby Santa Catarina Palopo, a village trying to raise its tourism profile and money through a project called Pintando where they paint houses around the village in deep blues and Guatemalan emblems of butterflies and cats instead of the previous grey breezeblocks.
We went on to one of the smallest towns on the lake, Jaibailito, to stay in an Airbnb with one of the highest ratings I’ve ever seen - Casa de la Piedra. Its panoramic decking with views over the lake, sliding windows, a hammock and an outside kitchen made it the perfect place to soak up our last days in Guatemala. It also had its own private dock with orange flags to hail passing boats to go to other towns. If you’re staying in one of the bigger towns (San Pedro, Santa Cruz, San Antonio), I’d suggest taking a boat to the hotel Casa Mundo on the lakeside near Jaibalito and spend the day: for a £5 day pass you can find one of the myriad reading and sunbathing spots amongst their mythical gardens and then swim in the lake straight from the rocks. (You can’t swim from many of the other bigger towns because of pollution and parasites in the water.)
In a nutshell, Guatemala is a world of its own. In two weeks, we managed to see sunrise over volcanoes, beautiful cities with cobbled streets, the bath-like Pacific Ocean rushing over black volcanic sands, monkeys swinging around Mayan temples. And, perhaps most of all, leaving with the deepest sense of restoration.
